The Innocent Die
by athingsublime
Summary: A short look into a significant event in Abby's past, told from her POV. Spoilers to 'Where the Heart Is'. SHIP-FREE.


Title: The Innocent Die  
Author: Noa  
Feedback: julianna_fan@yahoo.com  
Notes: Another ficlet. Aren't those fun? If you want to archive this ficlet, please email me.  
Disclaimer: Abby belongs to whoever invented her – I only own the Abby-shaped cookie I got from my dear Adeline. Also, the title comes from the song The Innocent by Good Charlotte, Mest and Goldfinger, though it has nothing to do with it.  
Thanks: To my dear Lexie, for beta-ing. Love you, darling.  
Summary: A short look into a significant event in Abby's past, told from her POV. Spoilers to 'Where the Heart Is'. SHIP-FREE.  
  
  
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I've always loved children. They have this amazing innocence in them, one that you will never find among grown ups or teenagers. For them, the world is nothing but a playground, an area to explore. As grown up, we often forget to appreciate what the world holds for us. Most of us get up in the morning unwilling to learn something new, not wanting to discover what else the world holds for us – We tend to believe we already know everything. Children have the excitement we lost once we became teenagers. They wake up in the morning and want to know why there's suddenly light outside. They want to learn the names of the different colors and shapes, they want to get to know new people.   
  
We give them all we can out of those things, because we want to make their life as great and as interesting as possible. Mostly, I think, we want to forget that one day they will grow up and be like us, know the things we know and think the way we do.   
  
We protect them as best as we can, trying our best to avoid them seeing the bad in life and in the world, but at some point they are too old for us to watch all day, every day, and we give up. They, in turn, give up their innocence. Looking back, I suppose the majority of them would love to posses that innocence again. If you have a heart, and most people do, it breaks your heart when you see our world as it really is, behind the walls your parents built for you when you were a child.  
  
I lost mine earlier than most people, and there isn't a day since that I wish I could be as innocent as I was before my 7th birthday. It's not like everything was sugar coated with Maggie before I turned seven, but at least until then I had my father to hide it from me. He built a wall around me and Eric and I'm grateful for that to this day. But more than that, I hate him for leaving us without any walls, alone to suddenly deal with something we didn't know about since we were born. Until then, it was always 'mommy's sick' and 'mommy's not feeling well', and then he left and we started to find out what it really was, and had to learn how to deal with it.   
  
We never really did, and I guess that's the part of us that stayed innocent to this day. We loved her too much to call the police on her, we hated her too much to try and get her help when we were older. Mostly, though, we were, and still are, innocent enough to believe her every time she promises to get better, to stay on her medication.  
  
An elderly woman, a nurse I assume, calls out my name. I follow her into a room down the hall where a young doctor, probably even younger than I am, greets me. I change into the gown the woman hands me, and lay on the bed. He promises it won't hurt, but that I may experience weakness and that it would be a good idea to take a few days off of work.   
  
What a terrible person he must think I am, killing my own child when there are millions of women all around the world who would give anything to be pregnant. Of course, he doesn't know why, he doesn't know that I am doing it to save my child from the life he or she has waiting for them. They don't deserve a grandmother like my mother, they don't deserve a mother like me, they don't deserve a father like Richard...   
  
They don't deserve having their innocence brutally shattered by the disease I may give them. 


End file.
